Cllr. Richard Kemp, the Lib Dem Leader on the Local Government Association – LGA, is a calm and sober commentator on political events so to hear him saying publicly via the national media today that Eric Pickles (see my posting of yesterday) and Grant Shapps (not a Minister that I have really noticed) are both in a world of their own as Coalition Ministers (my words not his) then all is not well. By the way Sefton Council voted to give notice of withdrawal from the LGA last Thursday as a cost cutting measure.
The Tory Party have always had their eccentric off the wall characters and my hope has been that they and the loony right (who Cameron clearly wants rid of) would be pushed to the sidelines via the Coalition Government. However, a couple of them seem to have sneaked through to positions of power which is regrettable. A test of Cameron will be what he does if they continue to be flaky. All political parties are themselves coalitions of differing views. Remember how Kinnock, Smith and Blair tried to rid themselves of Labour’s extreme left. Remember how John Major became a prisoner of the Tories loony right wing when he was Prime Minister. I am sure there are other examples and I am quite prepared to accept that we Lib Dems have our odd fringe people as well!
My firm view is that the Coalition is right but then again I sit on a Council that has been run by a 3 party coalition since 1986! To believe that any single political party has a monopoly on wisdom is to delude one self. On Sefton Council 95% of the decisions have all-party agreement to them; that is a positive not a negative thing. Yes, I know that Labour suggested that they were likely to remove themselves from Sefton’s Cabinet last Thursday to become an opposition party, but will they really do that? Should they really do that? Their dilemma is that their Leader is one of two Deputy Leaders of the Council so if they truly want to oppose the Council’s required savings, that I have posted about previously, then they may have to walk away from Sefton’s multi-party governance to do that with any credibility. But if they walk away they will cease to be able to influence the Cabinet. What will they do, we await their decision with interest.
I see advantage in having a wider political tent than just one party; it should lead to better government as it makes it less likely that extremists can have undue influence which was clearly what brought Major to his knees. Multi-party government would also have stopped Margaret Thatcher who, in my view, did far more harm than good. This, of course, means we need to vote yes in the fair votes referendum next May. Extremists and loonies need to be marginalised in British politics like they are in most modern western democracies.